Digital Delights - Digital Tribes

"The real way technology challenges us is the impact of misbehavior. The scope and reach is immediate and vast. An infraction that in the analog world would constitute a small gaff can become a full blown media incident in our digital age. What technology has done is taken the social consequences and amplified them beyond the capacity of many of our students to comprehend.  It’s taken what historically has been pretty low price tag infractions and inflated them at a rate many of us are unprepared to deal with. Consequences we engineer should teach.  The consequences brought about by the ramifications of misuse of technology often do not teach. They often do damage. We really have very little control of the coarse reaction the world drops on our children.

What it hasn’t changed is how a good person conducts themselves. Teaching and reinforcing how we want our student to conduct themselves is absolutely within our control. Keep teaching those expectations. Focus on the core character principles you want to foster in your students. Don’t be scared of the technology access. Teach your students how they apply to the technology they use. Know that we probably can’t anticipate what innovation will bring next. Technology and progress will not slow its pace. Chances are the fundamental values of citizenship will address it no matter what. Don’t rest on teaching good citizenship as part of all interactions. Expect the same conduct face to face and screen to screen and biotech interface to biotech interface. Teaching our students attributes like compassion and empathy and responsibility addresses our digital dilemmas, even the ones we haven’t seen yet."